Fripp Lifer

Labor Day weekend, 2004, I got engaged to my hard-working, beautiful wife on Wardle’s Landing. Among other things, I now officiate weddings on Fripp Island, but how did I get here? How did I go from a toddler staying at the La Tai Inn (now the Sunsuites) in 1976 to approaching my 20th anniversary of living on Fripp Island? Allow me to harken you back to the days when the only 4-way stop on the island was the intersection of Dolphin and Marlin roads—to the days when security consisted of two old Nissan trucks and the security gate was 100 yards farther inland by the corporate campus. My understanding is they moved the gate due to the theft of some rocking chairs at Springtide. I’m sure that was just the straw…

My memorable Fripp life continued in 1983 when New Haven was a gleaming new beacon of upscale property with a fountain. My grandparents bought into #603 (EASTCO). We had a view of Fripp Inlet since North Hampton and Ocean Cottages had yet to be built. The courtyard at New Haven was beautiful, but this eight-year-old with a broken arm really wanted to operate that snazzy elevator. You couldn’t pay me to put anything in it now besides luggage. I know for a fact how old it is.

The Fripp Island of my youth was a different world. Firstly, Wardle’s Landing wasn’t there, nor was Ocean Creek. As a teen without a driver’s license, (fewer people and less to hit) I would access that end of the island through a cattle gate at the end of Wahoo. It’s no wonder Hollywood decided to make that end of the island into fictional versions of the jungles of Vietnam for Forrest Gump and India for Jungle Book 2. (I recall the little creatures running all over the island that were apparent stowaways in the elephant feed.) There was a path that basically followed what is now Ocean Creek Drive that ended where the Cabana Club is now—where the hut built for Forrest Gump stood for several years until the Cabana Club was constructed. You could snake around and take the path of what is now the 11th and 13th holes (OC). It felt prehistoric and untouched as befits an island that is literally at the edge of the Earth. (Fripp is the farthest point from mainland on the coast of South Carolina for those that don’t know.)

My desire to write was born on the rocks at the end of Seahorse. You can’t see much of them now, but the ocean was once right there. I realize I’m not the first to use Fripp as a muse, nor the most famous, nor will I likely be the last, but this gem of the Atlantic is at my core—it always was, even in times when I was away from home for years.

Sometimes I still refer to Ocean Creek as the “new course” even though it opened in 1995. The Ocean Point pool will always be the New Haven pool. Speaking of Ocean Creek, I was on the 11th during spring break from the University of South Carolina playing a round with my parents when news came from the greens’ keeper that a section of the bridge collapsed. (It even made the USA Today.) This explained why we weren’t seeing any people around on an otherwise perfect golf weather day.

My family and I recall the stadium lights that oversaw the filming of Prince of Tides in 1989. This is a prime example of the motion of the ocean in that the beach came right up to Nick Nolte and Blythe Danner’s house in those days. The very nature of a barrier island means it’s always on the move. It’s fascinating, in geological terms, to be able to witness land come and go and go and come again. I digress. I really just wanted to say that if you watch really really closely in the scene where Nick Nolte goes to wake up his little girl after returning from New York, you’ll see my mother and grandmother waaay down the beach. You better be quick, but I feel they should be in the closing credits with Streisand and Nolte.

During this same period of time, Fripp was still secret enough, even on our busiest holiday, to shoot the 4th of July fireworks out over Fripp Inlet. It wasn’t a big deal to find a spot on the bridge and watch the show. God Bless America!

The same thing that attracts the rest of us to Fripp Island exists for Hollywood too. Don’t forget it’s the edge of the Earth and there was blessed isolation from the real world that only exists in part these days and mostly only in the minds of people who have been around as long as I have or longer. However, one can still find an isolated stretch of beach, especially in the dead of our truncated winter.

I recall the fighter jets from MCAS used to break the sound barrier out this way as a matter of course. Whether true or not, I heard the reason why that doesn’t happen much anymore is due to the fact of a general getting his windows blown out on his fishing boat by a soundwave.

It occurs to me that I am now of a similar age as some of the neighbors that occupied the Fripp neighborhood of my childhood. I still see some of the faces, but as you can imagine, that’s becoming fewer and further between.

Both sets of my grandparents used to bring me down from our home in the Upstate of South Carolina. As a child, I took for granted that they would hang together, much less that all four were living. My grandfather on my mother’s side, went to high school with my grandmother on my father’s side.

I even received a third set of grandparents in our next-door neighbors beginning in 1989. The gentleman of the house and my grandmother had spoken on the phone for 30 years due to working at different offices of Duke Power. They never met until they built and moved in next door from the Upstate area. Truly special people for this special place. The older I get, the less I believe in coincidences.

This “blessed isolation” I speak of can be attributed to the timeless nature of Fripp Island. Things can be timeless even in times of change for our enclave. It’s easy to forget we’re all neighbors on the edge of the Earth until beasts like Matthew visit our shore.

A rare polar bear visited our shore January 3, 2018. The meteorologists called it down to the hour. It was striking seeing snow stick to the sandbar between Fripp and Hunting Island. My wife and I stayed with my mother-in-law at North Hampton that day. That day that was my wife’s 45th birthday eve. All she wanted was a final time being snowed in with her ailing mother and she got it. That sub-tropical Fripp provided this when her mountain hometown of Brevard, NC could not is special indeed. Some things are meant to be and I am forever Fripp grateful.

I have to say that the most bizarre time on Fripp was April of 2020, during the initial white-hot heat of the Covid outbreak. One comes to expect the beach to be desolate during a crappy winter’s day, but during a warm spring day, not so much. It was rare to see a strange car, face, or golf cart, for that matter. And it was like that for a month. Snowbirds became legitimate residents, not knowing when they would ever see home. I came to feel grateful for the elbow room Fripp afforded during that frightening period of our planet’s history.

The tide has ebbed on the previous ownership of the island. Times change. Our 6’ to 9’ tides are a constant, vigilant reminder. The changes and stewardship the Wardle family oversaw throughout the decades was vast. Now a sea change is upon our island, with a new family taking the reins of stewardship. I, for one, am excited and grateful at the same time. Grateful to Wardle family for all they did for Fripp and excited at the potential improvements to our unique neighborhood. I am left to wonder; wonder what our daughter will witness over the next generation—iteration of Fripp. Emma Belle (EB) now lives in the room I occupied as a child her current age.

What is your history as a Fripp Lifer, be it long or short? We’d love to hear. Happy spring, y’all.